


Love is Not a Victory March

by monimala



Category: Justified
Genre: F/M, M/M, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 06:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3757297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monimala/pseuds/monimala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set during season two and originally posted on LJ, this tries to explore Ava and Boyd's strange little arrangement after she takes him in. </p><p>
  <i>When she's patching him up, she feels the start of it deep in her bones.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is Not a Victory March

She lays down the law when she takes him in. Gives him strict rules. No bullshit. She tells him she's only extending the courtesy because he's kin…and barely just, at that. "Yes, ma'am," he says, without a single hint of mockery, just that soft, gentlemanly drawl that makes her blood feel like ice. He don't raise his voice or his hand to her like Bowman did, but he frightens her just the same.  
  
No. Not just the same. Different. Because she knows early on that they're going to go to bed together. Not in a day. Not in a week. But soon. Maybe one night when they're both just plain tired of pretending their souls ain't empty and their bodies ain't willing.  
  
When she's patching him up, she feels the start of it deep in her bones. The way his chest tightens under her hands, the way he spares her the gasps and curses from the sting of the peroxide. He tries to be strong for her. He _is_ strong for her. And Ava just can't resist that in a man. Even if that man is as plum crazy as Boyd Crowder.  
  
They rub along tolerably well otherwise. Like all the hell he put her through before's been scrubbed away with laundry soap, leaving just a faded stain. He's painfully proper. Respectful. He cleans up after himself, and minds her when she asks him to call if he's running late for supper. He changes light bulbs and goes for the fuse box when the power blows during a storm. He even kills vermin, though when he dispatches a spider hanging right above her headboard, he chases the speedy execution with a laugh. "We are all God's creatures, Ava," he reminds, sounding like a preacher at the pulpit. "What have you got to fear from such a harmless little thing?"  
  
It's no great stretch for her to admit to herself that Boyd's got the kind of pull that would see her butt in a pew every Sunday morning. And that…that gives her _plenty_ to fear.  
  
Somewhere along the way, he becomes the man of her house, and she becomes the woman he comes home to. The whole county thinks they're fucking, that Boyd done stepped into his brother's shoes. Ava isn't of a mind to fix that assumption. She don't give a damn what the fine people of Harlan County think. What Raylan thinks when he stops his high and mighty self by, loitering on the porch with that godforsaken hat in his hands. And he stops by regular-like. Every robbery, every kidnapping, every petty little thing. Someone farts in Harlan, and Raylan Givens has to wonder if Boyd's got indigestion. And he looks at them both like they're betraying him somehow…like they should've got his seal of approval before going all domestic.  
  
But she knows what's true, what's real. They ain't in love. To be honest, they ain't even in _like_. But they're kin. More than barely just. Boyd's hers to take care of, and her mistake to make.  
  
On one of Raylan's fact-finding missions, he stops in the kitchen doorway, staring at her for a long time. Until she's restless, trying to find the laughter in his eyes. "I hope you know what you're doing, Ava" is all he says.  
  
She keeps her head high, proud. "Even if I don't, it ain't your call."  
  
When she and Boyd do get on with it, it's real quiet. No slamming into walls, no "fuck me"s and "I want you"s and clothes going every which way. It's just a man and a woman clearing the table, doing the washing and the drying…and then going hand-in-hand to her room. Boyd takes care, like she's a bride on her wedding night, even though she hasn't been a virgin since she was waving pom-poms on the JV squad. He undresses her nice and slow, asking before he kisses her. His hands have done so much violence, but they're gentle on her skin. She don't recall ever seeing Boyd with a woman, in all the time she's known him…and she wonders if maybe he's supposed to be the virgin here, not her.  
  
Afterward, their faces are close on the pillow. Boyd's breathing's still ragged, his eyes dark as sin, and the stubble on his cheeks is even darker. She laughs, still weary…always weary, and she scrapes her hand against his jaw, like maybe it'll leave a hundred tiny marks. "You reckon I don't know Raylan's between us in this bed, Boyd?"  
  
He turns his lips into the soft, fleshy center of her palm, and his whisper sends shivers straight to her toes. "Where else would he be, Ava?"  
  
Raylan Givens is kin, too. He just hasn't accepted the inevitable.

  
  
\--end--  
  


March 27, 2011


End file.
